


Throw Away The Map

by fruitxbat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, BAMF Pansy Parkinson, Childhood Friends, F/M, Fluff, Fred Weasley Lives, Friends to Lovers, Light Angst, M/M, SO MUCH FLUFF, Slow Burn, also angst but like, draco/harry is b-plot, everyone's friends bc i want them to be, harry's a teacher, his parents are suing pansys parents, landscaping AU i suppose?, marcus owns a landscaping company and adrian works for it, marcus/oliver is background, mostly this is an excuse for me to write a lot about pansy and adrian bc i adore pansy and adrian, ron/hermione is established, the weasleys are lawyers, weasleys wizard wheezes is a bar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26002903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fruitxbat/pseuds/fruitxbat
Summary: “Yeah, alright, fine,” Adrian sighs, wiping at the sweat still trickling down his forehead with the back of his hand. On the other end of the phone line, he can hear a mirroring sigh from his father, and he rolls his face skyward, begging the blue expanse above him for a tiny sliver of patience.______'My Parents Are Suing Your Parents Over a Property Dispute But We're Childhood Friends So Let's Fall in Love' AU with just a dash of 'Everyone's Friends and No One's Dead and There's No Voldemort,' for some zest.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Marcus Flint/Oliver Wood, Pansy Parkinson/Adrian Pucey
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> I adore Adrian Pucey and I love Pansy Parkinson even more, and this started out as a small, quick thing to help me through some writers block on another project. Now it's turned into its own project.  
> It's a no-magic, modern-setting AU where Adrian works at a landscaping company owned by Marcus Flint. His parents are suing their neighbors, who end up being Pansy Parkinson's parents. Antics and pining ensue.  
> They're all friends, with allusions to animosity from when they were in school.  
> I know very little about civil court cases and even less about court proceedings in the UK; errors will probably abound, which I apologize for, and I'm sorry if that bothers anyone. The focus of this is Adrian and Pansy and their friends, and details about certain things have fallen to the wayside.  
> No beta for this one, lads, all mistakes are my own.

“Yeah, alright, _fine_ ,” Adrian sighs, wiping at the sweat still trickling down his forehead with the back of his hand. On the other end of the phone line, he can hear a mirroring sigh from his father, and he rolls his face skyward, begging the blue expanse above him for a tiny sliver of patience. 

  
“I expect you at half-four,” his father says, and it’s that firm tone he uses with the squirmy, slimy MBAs that work for him. “The lawyer’ll be here at quarter to five.” 

  
“I _said_ ‘fine,’” Adrian snaps. He yanks the phone away from his ear, jamming the ‘end call’ button as hard as he can with his thumb, sending the phone clattering to the pavement with the force of it. “Christ,” he mumbles, stooping to pick it up. He wishes he had a flip phone, could’ve snapped the thing shut on his father. Could’ve proven his point a lot better. Well. Maybe. Would’ve felt a lot more cathartic, at any rate. 

  
The corner of the screen’s cracked, he realizes, with a wince, and he swipes his thumb over it as he stands, as if it’ll fix it. It doesn’t, unsurprisingly, and he sighs again, shoving it into the back pocket of his dirty work jeans. 

  
“Your dad called, I take it?” Graham calls, and Adrian rolls his head around on his neck, feeling his vertebrae pop as he looks over his shoulder. Graham’s striding along down the footpath from the Greengrass’ front door, clutching a clipboard and a pair of pruning shears. 

  
Adrian nods, shoving his hands deep into his pockets as he walks back up the drive, meeting Graham at the truck. The Greengrass jobs are usually pretty easy, just simple mowing and tending to the various hedges and shrubs, and today had been no different. They’d been wrapping up trimming the hedge wall at the back of their property when Adrian’s phone had rang, and he’d been able to duck out to the front drive to answer it, leaving Graham to get the paperwork signed. 

  
He wishes they’d been thrown onto a job at the Bletchley’s instead, maybe, or the Derrick’s. Hell, he wishes they’d been stuck doing the Malfoy’s ridiculously intricate flower beds today- anything tedious enough to keep him from having to go to his parent’s house this afternoon. 

  
“What’d he want?” Graham asks, tossing the clipboard into the back of the truck carelessly. “More complaints about the neighbor’s dogs?” 

  
“I wish,” Adrian says, hotly. He climbs into the cab of the pickup, slamming his seatbelt into the buckle with more force than necessary. He catches his thumb in it, because of course he fucking does. There’s already a blood blister forming, he notes, sourly, as he holds it up to inspect it, and he hisses a little from the pain. “Nah, he’s suing the neighbors. Calling in a lawyer and everything. Needs me there, for whatever fucking reason.” 

  
“He’s _suing_ his neighbors?” Graham asks, his eyebrows disappearing into his hairline, and Adrian rolls his eyes. 

  
“Well, technically counter-suing,” Adrian amends. “They sued him first, but he’s fucking annoyed about it. Enough to sue them back.” 

  
“Do I wanna know why?” 

  
“Property lines,” Adrian says, and Graham erupts into laughter as he backs the work truck out of the Greengrass’ driveway. He sinks a little into his seat, sulking slightly as Graham chuckles to himself all the way out of the development. If it was anyone else, Adrian would’ve- would’ve- well, he doesn’t know what, exactly, he would’ve done, but he knows Graham gets a special pass from it, at least. He’s known him too long, has known Adrian’s insufferable family for too long- not that Graham’s family’s any better, really- and if anyone’s allowed to laugh at him, it’s Graham. 

  
“Your dad’s _counter-suing_ his neighbors, who are _already_ suing him, over where their property ends?” Graham’s still grinning wildly by the time he settles down enough to speak, and Adrian glares at him, crossing his arms defiantly. 

  
“Keep laughing, Monts,” he says, darkly. “I’ll find a way to rope you into this, too, just give me a reason. My father bloody adores you, he’d love to have you in his corner at court, could probably use you for a witness; ‘Your honor, don’t you see, Mr. Montague trimmed my rosebushes, which are in the upper-left-corner of the back garden, therefore it certainly couldn’t belong to Mr. Next-Door.’” 

  
Graham socks him in the shoulder, harshly, and Adrian grins, leaning his head back against the seat. Graham’s pointing a grubby, dirt-stained finger at him while still keeping his eyes on the road. 

  
“Don’t get me involved,” he says. “Don’t. I’ve got enough on my plate right now with Flint leaving. Last thing I need is to be in the middle of some middle-aged, misguided property dispute.” 

  
Adrian holds both of his own hands up in surrender, the grin sliding off his face as the pickup turns down the road to the main office. He’s going to have shower, and change, and probably shave, too, and then he’s still got to drive all the way out to fucking Cobham. 

  
He scratches at the stubble along his jaw. His father’s going to bitch about something about his appearance, anyway; might as well direct it to something benign and controllable, like his beard. Might keep him off his back about literally everything else, anyway. 

  
Graham mock-salutes him as he climbs out of the cab. “Godspeed, Puce,” he says, with a wicked grin, and Adrian flips him two fingers as he strides towards his dated, slightly beat-up Land Rover in the corner of the lot. 

  
“Fuck you, Monts,” he calls, fondly, as he climbs into the SUV, and Graham waves as he heads into the main office, clipboard of paperwork clutched in his hands. 

∆

It’s four-thirty-five when Adrian finally pulls into his parent’s gated driveway, the metal of his Rover clinking loudly as it cools in the afternoon heat. He ambles up the drive slowly, kicking at a loose pebble as he goes. He’s already going to catch hell for being five minutes late- might as well take his time, at this point. He wishes he’d at least made being late worth it and stopped for a cuppa. 

  
Adrian skirts the front door, meandering around the garage and walking directly through the backyard, instead. His parents are, predictably, on the terrace- his father hidden behind the business section of the newspaper, his mother delicately sipping what Adrian guesses is wine from a glass that looks so fragile he’s surprised it can hold liquid without shattering. 

  
She spots him first, her thin face beaming as she waves at him. His father’s face appears from behind the paper a second later, already set into a disapproving frown before Adrian fully sees him. 

  
“Oi,” Adrian calls, in greeting, and his father’s scowl deepens, readjusting his paper.

  
“Afternoon, dear,” his mother calls, and she pats the cushion on the seat next to her, taking another ghost of a sip from her glass. Adrian collapses into the chair, slouching down further than he supposes is necessary, lacing his fingers together across his stomach. 

  
“It’s four-thirty-seven, Adrian,” his father says, in lieu of greeting. “I believe we agreed on half-four. The lawyer will be here in eight minutes.” 

  
Adrian rolls his eyes. “I’m here before him, aren’t I? Isn’t that enough?” 

  
“Dressed like that? _Hardly_ appropriate, Adrian.” 

  
He hadn’t thought he looked all too bad when he’d left his house earlier, and Adrian frowns, glancing down at his black jeans and black shirt and denim jacket. He wears this on _dates_ , for chrissakes. Surely that’s good enough for a lawyer. 

  
His mother places a bony hand on his shoulder, her touch wispy and barely-there even as she beams at him. 

  
“He’s a very good lawyer, darling,” is all she says, and Adrian knows her well enough to know that it’s layered criticism of his appearance. He snorts. 

  
“Chuck us some wine, why don’t you?” he asks, pointing to the dainty glass in his mother’s hand, and his father bristles just as the front doorbell rings. 

  
“That’ll be him,” his father says, and he shakes his wrist to glance at his watch, tapping it as he stands. “Four-fourty-one, Adrian. _That’s_ punctuality.” 

  
Adrian forces himself to take a deep, steadying breath as both of his parents stand from the terrace table and glide to the open French doors, back into the house. As they disappear over the threshold, he drains the last of whatever’s in the glass, wincing at the taste. He’s never been a wine person, not really, and the (most likely) overpriced red is strong. 

  
“Adrian!” his father snaps, the voice dulled enough to be coming from past the kitchen, and Adrian sets the glass down carefully on the tabletop before following them into the house. 

  
His mother’s at the sink, filling up a pitcher with water and fruit slices, and she passes a small crudités tray to him as he enters. 

  
“You made the property lawyer _crudités_ ,” Adrian says, flatly, and his mother purses her lips, pressing them into a line so thin it almost disappears. She doesn’t bother deigning him with any sort of response, just picks up the pitcher and straightens her shoulders, leading Adrian down the corridor to the library, where he can hear his father’s low, rumbly voice. 

  
He doesn’t see the lawyer at first- he’s too busy setting down the tray with the sort of exaggerated pomp and circumstance that he knows will irritate his father- but once he does, he’s not sure how he didn’t see him before. 

  
The shock of orange-red hair is almost burning, even cut into the close-cropped style it is. It draws his eyes like a beacon, and Adrian barely has time to register the horn-rimmed glasses and faint, barely-there smattering of freckles before the lawyer’s turning his gaze to him. 

  
“Percy?” Adrian asks, incredulous, and Percy’s face hardens the smallest bit, imperceptible if Adrian hadn’t spent years at a tiny school with him. 

  
“Adrian,” Percy says, clipped and even, and he extends a hand towards him. “I thought I recognized the name ‘Pucey,’ I wasn’t sure if they were relatives or not.”   
Adrian takes his hand, shaking it, dimly aware of the fact his father is clearing his throat behind him. 

  
“Mr. Weasley here was just telling me you went to school together,” his father says, offering Percy a tall, slim glass of water, his smile that slimy, waxy one. 

  
“Yeah, yeah, he was a few years ahead of me,” Adrian says. “I’m pretty good friends with some of your brothers now, actually. Spend a lot of time down at Wheezes with Fred and George and Ron.” 

  
Percy stiffens- again, tiny, small, and almost unconsciously- but he grins at Adrian, his smile mirroring his father’s so effortlessly that Adrian has to glance down at his boots before he laughs. He can feel his father’s brain turning, and if he was a betting man, he’d put odds on the idea that, at some point before he leaves, his father’ll make a crack about how much he wishes Percy was his son instead of Adrian. 

  
“Ah,” Percy says, nodding once. “Wheezes. Wonderful pub. Alas, someone had to carry on the ‘and Sons’ of ‘Weasley and Sons Law.’ I suppose it’s fallen permanently to Bill and I.” 

  
There’s a sudden hand on Adrian’s shoulder, shaking him just roughly enough to be a warning while still appearing casual, and his father’s voice grates out from near Adrian’s let ear. 

  
“How lovely it is to catch up with old school chums,” his father says, and Percy smiles again, pliant and appeasing. 

  
“Shall we get on with the consultation, Mr. Pucey?” Percy asks, and Adrian’s father gestures to the chair, motioning for Percy to sit. 

  
“Call me Aldrich, please,” is all he says, and he takes his own seat, loosing the button on his jacket as he settles into the straight-back chair. His mother takes a seat as well, and Adrian has no choice but to sit next to her, giving into the urge to slouch just enough to still be deemed ‘appropriate’ for polite company. 

  
Percy pops the snaps on his briefcase, pulling out a flurry of papers and documents, pointing to various clauses and highlighted passages as he talks in elevated legal jargon to his father. Adrian tunes it mostly out, glancing at the papers in front of him without really reading them, spinning a spare pen around on the table top absentmindedly. 

  
Percy’s prepared, for sure, with examples of other civil cases and precedents and a whole bunch of other crap that Adrian can’t be assed to listen to. His droning voice is like white noise, and Adrian watches blankly as his parents are completely enraptured by it. They’re soaking up Percy’s every word like bread to gravy, and Adrian can’t help but wonder why he needs to be here at all. It’s not even his property line- his parents had moved out of Godric’s Hollow once he’d graduated and went off to uni, and though they’d had this house ( _estate_ , really, if Adrian’s honest) since then, it wasn’t his childhood home. He couldn’t give less of a shit what the judge ruled regarding the property line. 

  
He yawns at exactly the wrong time, and his father glares at him, his whispery little mustache quivering with the force of his exhale. “That would be Adrian,” he says. 

  
Adrian knits his eyebrows together, stretching his arms out in front of him. “What would be Adrian?” he asks, through the tail end of his yawn. 

  
“The proxy.” 

  
“What?” he asks, dumbly, even though he knows what it means. 

  
“The proxy, Adrian,” his father says, impatiently, tapping one of the many identical papers neatly arranged on the table. “I don’t have the time to go to all these hearings and meetings and what-have-you. You’re our proxy, you’ll be attending most of them for us.” 

  
Adrian stares, slack-jawed, at his parents, flickering between annoyance and amusement. Mostly annoyance. Ninety-percent annoyance. 

  
“I have a full-time job, I can’t just drop it to go gallivanting all around London about a meter of back garden space that you and the neighbors are arguing over,” he says. His mother’s scrawny fingers wrap around his forearm, squeezing it in a way that Adrian _knows_ is supposed to encouraging and supportive, but it feels like a shackle around his arm. 

  
“I’m sure they can cut lawns without you,” she says, soft and simpering, and Adrian can’t even allow himself to be irritated with their dismissal of his career choice because he’s too busy being annoyed with being his parent’s _legal proxy_ in a sodding property dispute. 

  
He stands from the table, shaking off his mother’s brittle grip. “You could’ve asked me this beforehand, you know,” he says, with more venom in voice than is probably deserved, but he doesn’t make an effort to bite it back. “Really didn’t have to wait to spring it on me.” 

  
His father sniffs, airily, and his mother is still smiling blandly at him, and Adrian wishes someone else was here, that someone else could be angry about this with him. His mother blinks at him, balefully, and Adrian wants Percy to go, to disappear, so he can say what he really wants to say, can tell the two of them that they can’t always expect him to just drop his life and his responsibilities for their own frivolities. 

  
But Percy stays sitting, watching Adrian with an entirely disinterested expression, and Adrian takes a breath so deep he’s surprised he doesn’t start floating towards the ceiling like a balloon, and he sits back down. 

  
“Give us the papers,” he mutters, and he scribbles his signature on so many forms he feels like his hands going to bleed. He can feel his mother beaming at him still, and the general waves of animosity from his father are stymied ever so slightly. Adrian grits his teeth so hard as he signs the last paper that he’d surprised his molars don’t crack from the pressure of it, and he flicks the form back to Percy. 

  
“Excellent,” Percy says, filing them all away inside his briefcase with the sort of anal retentiveness that Adrian imagines can only come from having so many siblings. “Now, shall we tour the property? I’d very much like to see the disputed area before we proceed any further.” 

  
“Certainly, certainly,” his father says, and Adrian rolls his head back, closing his eyes at the glaring white of the ceiling for a long moment. The blackness behind his eyelids is refreshing, and he sighs heavily. 

  
His mother calls his name from the hallway, and Adrian scrubs hard at his jaw with his hand, letting the rough stubble on his chin burn his skin a little bit. Graham’s going to have a field day with this, he knows, about how he’s let his two manipulative, conniving parents trick him into another scheme that doesn’t have anything to do with him. 

  
Maybe he should do the proper thing and cut them both off. Estrange himself. Graham did it, ages ago, and it’s worked out lovely for him. _He_ never gets incensed phone calls at work about asinine lawsuits. 

  
Adrian sighs, again, peeling himself out of the chair and trudging out into the garden, where Percy’s already complimenting his father about the choice of stone for the terrace wall and the color scheme of the furniture. Adrian tunes them out, again, wallowing in his own misery since no one else will, watching a tiny chipmunk scuttle around near the roots of the trees on the opposite property line. 

  
The sharp, sudden bark of a dog makes him glance up, just in time to see the terrace doors of the neighbor’s house swing open, two over-large Great Danes spilling into the garden, nipping at each other, followed by- 

  
“ _Pansy_?” Adrian says, loudly, gobsmacked, interrupting whatever pointless diatribe his father and Percy were in the middle of. 

  
She turns at the sound of her name, perfectly pencilled eyebrows furrowing just the slightest bit until she catches sight of Adrian. She’s cut her hair since Adrian last saw her, the dark locks of it _just_ brushing her shoulders. Her nails are painted dark, her lips are stained dark, her eyes are dark, her hair is dark- all of it stark and brash against her pale skin. 

  
She doesn’t smile at him, not exactly, but her lip does quirk up at one end, her eyebrows resettling into something akin to a smirk. 

  
“Adrian,” she calls back, over the low hedge. She doesn’t make any move to come closer, just wiggles the ends of her fingers in his direction. “Long time, no see.” 

  
“Yeah,” Adrian agrees, dumbly, nodding too harshly. “Thought you were in America.” 

  
“I was,” she says, and stops. She offers no further explanation, no hints of intent at elaboration, just turns her attention back to the two Great Danes, both of whom are playfully barking at each other, low and brassy. 

  
“You know her?” his father asks, suddenly, his voice brittle, and Adrian is reminded, with an unpleasant ache, that there’s other people around him. He turns, away from Pansy and her dogs and her _fucking_ smirk, back to his father, who’s wispy little mustache is practically vibrating with how forcefully his upper lip is bristling. 

  
“Went to school together,” Adrian says, noncommittally, waving his hand. 

  
“And now her parents are suing me,” his father says, and Adrian purses his lips, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. Oh. Right. That. 

  
He doesn’t pay much attention to anything else Percy and his father have to say, barely listening to their long, drawn-out prattling on and on about the sodding property lines; his attention is somewhere in the yard next door, at least until Pansy herds the dogs back into the house, tossing him another little finger-wiggle-wave as she closes the terrace doors behind her.   


∆

He’s the first one to the bar that night, sliding onto an empty stool right in front of Ron. “Your brother’s my father’s new lawyer,” he says, drumming his hands against the bar top. Ron rolls his eyes, already filling up a pint glass for him. 

  
“Which brother?” he asks, but the tone in his voice suggests he already knows, and Adrian smirks. 

  
“Percy.” 

  
“Wanker,” Ron mumbles, darkly, and he sets the pint glass down in front of Adrian,. “What’s your dad need a lawyer for, anyway?” 

  
“The neighbors sued him over property lines, and now he’s suing them back over the same property line,” he says, draining half the glass in one long swig. He burps softly as he sets it back down. Ron laughs, hard and long, and Adrian scowls, glancing around the bar. It’s still fairly empty this early into the evening, and there’s only a couple of patrons seated at a few of the tables. 

  
Ron actually wipes a tear away from his eye as his laughter fades, his freckled face still split wide with a grin. “Only your parents,” he mumbles, shaking his head. 

  
“Well, actually, also Pansy’s parents,” Adrian says, sniffing, determined to be right, and then Ron’s head snaps up sharply, his eyebrows completely disappearing into the shaggy orange fringe on his forehead. 

  
“Parkinson?” he asks. 

  
“Yup,” Adrian says, popping the ‘p’ with a little more force than necessary. “Her parents live in the house next door to mine.” He pauses, dragging his finger down through the condensation on his glass, and Ron seizes the silence. 

  
“Thought she was in America?” he asks, and he tops off Adrian’s pint glass for him without Adrian even having to ask him to. Adrian shrugs, suddenly wishing for a different topic, not wanting to discuss Pansy bloody Parkinson with Ron, of all people. They’re friends, now, he knows, but there’s still some things he doesn’t like talking about when it’s just him and Ron, and he glances around over his shoulder, towards the door, willing someone else to walk in. 

  
Draco does, thankfully, but not until about ten minutes later, his blonde hair swept back into the tiniest of knots at the back of his head. Ron points it out immediately, and Adrian, grateful to have something else to talk about, latches onto it just as quickly. 

  
“Oi, what’s with the man bun?” Ron asks, dropping a glass of whiskey in front of Draco. 

  
“Growing out your hair, mate?” Adrian crows. 

  
“Trying to get a spread in _Prats Weekly_?” 

  
“Gonna pretend you’re David Beckham?” 

  
“Shut up,” Draco hisses, but it’s feeble, and there’s rosy pink splotches on both of his cheekbones. A few of the pale blonde locks are falling loose, too short to really be held up inside his bun, and Adrian tugs on one of them.

  
Draco swats his hand away, scowling furiously at him. “Get your grimy, dirty paws off of me, Pucey,” he snarls, but his cheekbones are still pink, and there’s a wispy, embarrassed frailty to his voice. Draco doesn’t let that bleed into his posture, though- he never does- and he simply squares his shoulders, chin high and pointed. “Where’s Graham? His company is _much_ more welcome and, by extension, usually makes you easier to stomach.” 

  
“Office,” Adrian grunts. “He and Marcus stayed late today, they’re going over some of the financials.” 

  
“How long now?” Ron asks, yawning. “Gotta be soon, right?” 

  
“Two weeks,” Adrian says. “Marcus is up there the next few days, though, helping Oliver settle into the house or something, I don’t know the details. But yeah, two weeks, and then England’ll be delightfully Marcus-free.” 

  
“Good riddance,” Draco says, but it’s warm, and Adrian knows the exact feeling. For all the times he can be a huge pain, Marcus is one of his closest friends, and he’ll miss him once he’s moved to Scotland. 

  
The door bustles open again, and Adrian and Draco both glance over their shoulders to see Harry rushing in, tying his own dark hair back as he blusters around behind the counter. 

  
“Sorry, sorry,” he says, smiling embarrassedly. “Don’t mean to be late, really, I got caught up at the school, had to do detentions today.” 

  
Ron waves the apology off, moving down the bar to help a few other patrons who’ve come up to the counter for refills. Harry rolls up his sleeves, revealing the deep tan of his forearms, grinning sheepishly at Draco and Adrian. Draco just smiles back dumbly, besotted, and Adrian rolls his eyes, shoving his pint glass at Harry. 

  
“Refill,” he grunts, and then points at Harry’s hair. “See, _that’s_ how you do a man bun, Malfoy.” 

  
Draco’s whole face turns a pale, sickly pink, and his grey eyes narrow dangerously at Adrian. Harrys face, interestingly enough, also turns slightly red, and Adrian smirks, leaning against the bar. 

  
“Er,” Harry says, passing the pint glass back to Adrian. 

  
“My father says your father is currently employing Ron’s father as a lawyer,” Draco says, suddenly, cuttingly, and it’s Adrian’s turn to scowl now. Harry tilts his head, flicking his eyes back and forth between Draco and Adrian.

  
“Your dad’s got a Weasley lawyer?” Harry asks. 

  
“It’s Percy.” 

  
“Wanker,” Harry breathes. 

  
“Wanker,” Draco echoes. 

  
“And yes, he does, if you must know.” 

  
“Why?” 

  
“Because he’s counter-suing Pansy Parkinson’s parents over their shared property lines, and he’s made me his legal proxy for him,” Adrian says, and he busies himself with chugging his entire glass. Draco stares at him as Harry dissolves into peals of laughter, clutching the counter for support. 

  
“Pansy’s parents?” Draco asks, and Adrian nods. 

  
“Pansy’s back, by the way, not sure if you guys knew that or not.” 

  
Harry’s laughter fades away, the grin freezing on his face. “Pansy’s back?” 

  
“Yeah,” Adrian breathes. He taps his glass. “Refill, Potter? Please.” 

  
Draco’s still staring at him, his hand clutching his pint glass so hard his knuckles have turned white, even as his face remains entirely unreadable. Adrian knocks back another full pint and stands, slapping Draco on the back. He doesn’t want to have this conversation, not now, not really at all, and not with Draco. Or Ron. He’d have it with Potter, he supposes, but who he really wants to talk to about all this is Graham. 

  
He pays his tab and slinks back in the balmy heat of the summer evening, tottering a little. Graham’ll know what to do. Even if Graham’ll laugh even harder at the fact that his parent’s neighbors are the bloody _Parkinsons_. 


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What could be worse than having to speak to Percy Weasley more than once a year?” Graham asks, flicking his empty coffee cup in Adrian’s direction. He swats it before it can hit his face, but there’s little enthusiasm in it, and Graham squints, raising his eyebrows.

Adrian’s the last one into the office the next morning, and he bursts into the lobby of Flint Lawn & Stone with a still-full thermos of coffee in his hand. Marcus doesn’t even look up from where he’s scribbling away at the front desk, just points at him, the phone still pinched between his shoulder and his cheek. 

  
“‘m on hold with the dealership, trying to get that one truck repaired. Monts’ loading up the pickup for you guys,” he mumbles, his thick eyebrows knitting together as he concentrates. “You’re going out to the Farley’s today. Flower beds. Hedges. Consultation for a stone path through their back- Hi, yes, I’m still here, I was waiting to hear about an appointment for a transmission check?” 

  
Adrian yawns, bobbing his head in agreement as Marcus’ attention shifts to the phone. There’s a few clipboards already prepped on the desk in front of him, all sticky-noted with who’s supposed to take what jobs; the one with ‘Monts + Puce’ scrawled in clumsy block letters is half-underneath one for ‘Cash + Luck.’ Adrian sends a silent, brief thank-you to whoever’s out there listening to him that it’s Cassius and Lucian stuck doing the Malfoy’s seasonal floral change-out this time around. 

  
He grabs the clipboard, tapping on the counter with his knuckles in farewell to Marcus, who flips him two fingers and covers his ear, squinting as he tries to listen to the dealership. Adrian laughs, soft but genuine, and he jogs out the back door, grinning. He’s going to miss Marcus when the fucker’s up in Scotland. 

  
Graham’s almost done loading by the time he reaches him, and Adrian waggles the clipboard above his head in greeting. “Morning,” he calls, tossing it through the open window and into the cab.

  
“Morning,” Graham yawns, slamming the gate to the bed shut. “You brought coffee?” 

  
“Full thermos,” Adrian says, and he leans over the edge of the bed, peering at the contents. “Flinty said we’re doing a consult for a path?” 

  
“Just an estimate, get a rough idea of what they’re looking for and whether we can do it for the cost they want,” Graham says. “Mostly late summer flower beds and some hedge wall cleanup. Full day, but an easy one.” 

  
“Ace,” Adrian says, and he glances up just in time to catch Graham’s eye, a wry, knowing smile spread over his friend’s square face. “What?” 

  
“It went badly, didn’t it?” Graham asks, and Adrian scowls, pushing off from the bed and yanking the cab door open. He’s known Graham for too long, he thinks, bitterly. He can see right through Adrian, can read his thoughts through the set of his shoulders and the lines of his face. 

  
Adrian buckles himself in- more carefully, this time, minding the still-sore blister on his thumb- and busies himself with pouring out two cups of black coffee from the thermos. Graham doesn’t mention it again, just slides into the driver’s seat and pulls out onto the road. He takes the cup Adrian offers him, blowing gently on it as they roll along. It’s not until they reach the main motorway that Adrian sighs, pinching at the bridge of his nose. 

  
“It went horribly,” he says, staring into his own cup. Graham doesn’t push, doesn’t prod, just keeps drumming his thumbs against the wheel in time with whatever song’s playing on that stupid 90’s throwback station Graham insists on listening to. “Was probably the worst visit I’ve had with them in recent memory.” 

  
“Wow,” Graham says, wincing. “Even worse than when they-“ 

  
“I don’t even know what you’re about to bring up, but yes, it was absolutely worse.” 

  
Graham whistles, low and drawn-out, and Adrian leans his head back against the headrest, watching the cars zoom past out the windshield. It all falls out of his mouth, the whole spectacle of the night, from his father’s immediate criticisms to the fact he now has to interact with Percy _fucking_ Weasley on a regular basis. 

  
“-and that’s not even the worst of it,” Adrian whines, sinking as low into the seat as his buckle will allow, pouting exaggeratedly. Graham, who’s been both laughing at him and commiserating with him, rolls his eyes, turning onto a through road that’ll take them to the Farley’s. 

  
“What could be worse than having to speak to Percy Weasley more than once a year?” Graham asks, flicking his empty coffee cup in Adrian’s direction. He swats it before it can hit his face, but there’s little enthusiasm in it, and Graham squints, raising his eyebrows. 

  
Graham’s the only person Adrian actually wants to talk to this about, and somehow he’s the only one that he’s having trouble getting the words out to. Draco, Ron, Harry- it’d been easy to mention it to them, even if he’d immediately needed an exit from the conversation after saying it. Graham, though, knows more about it than them, is going to read into every word of his next few sentences like it’s Shakespeare and he’s tasked with writing a dissertation on it. 

  
Adrian huffs, chewing at his bottom lip. Graham’s going to read into that, too, probably. His hesitation of it all. “Their neighbors are the Parkinsons,” he says, finally, quietly, and Graham sucks in a quick, tiny, breath. 

  
“The Parkinsons? As in-“

  
“The very same,” Adrian says, still quiet, and he can feel Graham’s eyes flittering back and forth between him and the road, but he keeps his own eyes trained firmly on the dashboard, still worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. 

  
“Is…” Graham starts, but he trails off as he pulls the truck into the Farley’s drive. Adrian grabs the clipboard and climbs out before the pickup’s fully parked, jutting his thumb at the front door. 

  
“I’ll do this bit, you start getting unloaded?” 

  
“This isn’t over, Puce,” Graham says, pointing at him, but it’s gentle, and Adrian feels a warm bloom in his chest for Graham. 

  
Edwin Farley is exceedingly polite, offering Adrian and Graham some more coffee, and Adrian fills up the thermos as Edwin glances over the paperwork. The consultation won’t happen until later in the afternoon, when Sabine’s back, and Adrian’s out in the front garden again in record timing. Graham’s only just finishing unloading, and he and Adrian settle into the front flower beds first, trimming and repotting and pruning in easy, companionable silence. 

  
Graham doesn’t bring it up again until after lunch, when they’ve moved into the back yard, trimming the tall hedge walls that run along either end of the property. 

  
He clears his throat a few times, breaking the silence before he gets the words out, and Adrian cuts a few twigs just slightly more aggressively than he needs to in anticipation of Graham’s next words. 

  
“Did you see Pansy?” Graham asks, his voice soft, above a whisper, but only just. Adrian clips another twig, nodding once, short, jerkily. 

  
He laughs, inwardly, bitterly. Did he see Pansy? He hasn’t been able to _stop_ seeing her since yesterday evening, the image of her gliding out of her parent’s terrace doors playing on repeat in his mind. Her dark hair- almost black- swaying ever so slightly when her head turned towards him; her dark, bottomless eyes glittering at him, even from meters away; her _fuckin_ g smirk, the quirk of her lips and her eyebrows as she did that finger-wiggle-wave at him- 

  
He clips another twig with a sharp _snap_. “Yes. I saw her.” 

  
Graham doesn’t say anything, but he’s not pruning his section of the hedge wall anymore, and Adrian doesn’t have enough room in his brain to be annoyed with that. He slides down, to the next section, and gets to work, leaving Graham watching him, listlessly, his shears drooping uselessly in his hand. 

  
He knows, better than anyone, exactly why this is an issue for Adrian, exactly where all the conflicted feelings are coming from, exactly why he’s both overjoyed and deeply irritated that Pansy’s back in town. He _knows_. And he’s just standing there, saying nothing, and Adrian wishes he could fault him for it, wishes he could even find it in himself to snap at Graham for not having a response, but his brain is too tangled up in every thread Pansy sodding Parkinson has ever weaved, and he can’t even force himself to sort out- 

  
Adrian tips his head back, closing his eyes against the unforgiving blue of the afternoon sky, letting the rare sun warm his face for a few seconds. He’s not aware of Graham moving until he feels a rough, calloused hand on his shoulder, and he creaks an eye open, peering blearily at Graham. 

  
“She looks fucking gorgeous, Monts,” is all he says, and Graham barks out a rough laugh, shaking him slightly. 

  
“‘Course she does,” he agrees. “’s Pansy.” 

  
Adrian straightens up, shaking his head a little, willing the thoughts crawling over themselves in his brain to settle for just, like, a single second. 

  
“Draco knows?” Graham asks, and he picks his shears back up, getting to work on his abandoned hedge. 

  
“Yeah.” 

  
“How’d he take it?” 

  
“Dunno,” Adrian admits, shrugging. “Left the bar almost right after. Went home and watched _Cold Feet_ reruns until I passed out.” 

  
Graham snorts. 

  
“You should call him,” he says. Adrian knows he’s right- because of course he’s right- but he frowns anyway, wrinkling his nose at the idea of having to talk about Draco’s _feelings_ with _Draco._

  
“He’ll call me if he wants to talk,” Adrian mumbles, which is a blatant lie, and Graham knows it. Adrian can feel heat crawling up the back of his neck, and he ignores it, ignores Graham’s look that he’s probably giving him right now, and keeps pruning, swatting a fly away from his face. “You see the game the other night? Your Falcons lost _spectacularly_.” 

  
It’s too brusque of a subject change, too harsh, too obvious, and Graham exhales tiredly, but he follows Adrian’s lead, anyway. “Magpies aren’t doing much better, Puce,” he says, and all the tension coiled in Adrian’s body withers immediately. He’s more grateful to Graham than the other will probably ever know.

  
They finish the hedges by mid-afternoon, just in time for Sabine Farley to walk them through an exhaustive description of what she wants this stone pathway in the back garden to look like. Graham nods along, listening attentively, but when Adrian peeks over at the notes he’s been taking on the clipboard, all Graham’s written is ‘flagstone.’ Adrian has to stifle his laugh behind his hand, ducking down and pretending to cough, but Sabine barely pauses in her presentation, leading the two of them back towards the house. 

  
Graham doesn’t bring Pansy up again until they’re parked back at the office, unloading the bed of the truck. He passes the clipboard back to Adrian, brushing his mop of hair back with dirt-stained fingers. 

  
“We’re going to Wheezes tonight,” he says, pointing a particularly dirty finger at Adrian. It’s not a question, but neither is it a command- it’s nothing more than a polite statement of fact, but it doesn’t stop Adrian from whining, slouching a little where he stands. 

  
“Monts-“ 

  
“Don’t want to hear it,” Graham says, grinning. “Potter’s working, Ron won’t be there, Draco’s got his weekly dinner with his mother tonight- we’re going. We’re talking. It’s fine,” he adds, catching sight of what Adrian’s sure is less-than-agreeable scowl. 

  
Adrian grumbles all the way back into the main lobby, tossing the clipboard carelessly onto the front desk. Marcus doesn’t acknowledge it, or him, just continues clacking away at the computer, rolling a pencil between his teeth. 

  
“We can do the Farley’s path,” he mumbles, “Order the flagstone for us and we can start once it gets here.” 

  
“Cheers,” Marcus says, and he glances up, finally, his eyes squinting, appraising him. “You’d be alright with a solo job tomorrow?” 

  
“Depends.” 

  
“On?” “What it is.” 

  
“Simple mow and floral upkeep,” Marcus says. “You and Monts are down at the Davies’ tomorrow morning, but I need him in the afternoon to go over suppliers and inventory.” 

  
“Should be fine,” Adrian shrugs, scratching at his chin. Maybe he’ll shave his beard, after all. The thing’s more itchy than it’s worth. “Just a mow?” 

  
“Just a mow,” Marcus echoes. Adrian shrugs, again, and Marcus scribbles something on the desk calendar in his clumsy block letters. He’s not thrilled, really, about doing a solo job- he and Graham have been working for Marcus since he started the company, and he hasn’t had to do a mow job in years. That’s for the newer guys, or the young kids, or the occasional hire who can’t do much else without royally fucking it up. He and Graham have been solely tag-teaming speciality jobs now for maybe two years, to the point where a few clients call and specifically ask for them. It’s not that a mow job is _beneath_ him, per se, it’s just that. Well. It’s boring. 

  
Graham’s waiting for him out by his Rover, empty thermos in hand. “See you there at seven? he asks, but there’s no question to it, not when Adrian knows he doesn’t really have a choice. 

  
“Seven it is,” he agrees, and he climbs into his Rover, turning the volume dial up all the way the second the radio kicks on. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for slow updates; this isn't abandoned, and is still being actively written and worked on, just with slower updates than anticipated.   
> No beta- all mistakes are my own.


End file.
